Rating: 
Summary: Behavioral Economics Explained Quite Well
Review: I have a Ph.D. in economics and a bachelor's degree in psychology. I've always found the fields of behavioral economics and experimental economics rather fascinating and wished to know more about the results of their research. So when I was shopping for a retirement investment guide recently I saw this book in the personal finance section and purchased it as well.As a primer on the basic findings of behavioral economics, this book is great -- interesting, well-explained, and much more fun to read than pouring through academic journals. It's quite interesting to see that how we make money decisions is based as much on psychological principles (namely loss aversion, sunk costs and framing of the gain or loss) as on a rational calculation of cost and benefits. Also explained somewhat here are money mistakes that people make not because of emotional tainting of financial decisions but simply because they draw incorrect conclusions from incomplete calculations, such as not correcting for inflation in the housing market, not calculating total interest payments over the terms of different loans, not realizing the power of compound interest. While it's a great book to explain certain irrational behaviors of your own and to explain a few financial chestnuts such as ignoring the financial pages, this book is not really an investment guide and is thin on suggestions for changing irrational behavior (other than realizing what you are doing will make you less likely to repeat the same mistakes). I would disagree with some reviewers who suggested that the book is insulting to their financial acumen. While it's true that there are people who have been able to 'beat the market', the authors merely report studies suggesting that most people who choose their own investments under-perform the market, and why this happens (framing of investment decisions, emotional investing, loss aversion, sunk costs, etc.). I think that's important information to have as an investor. If you choose your own investments, you will make smarter decisions by understanding understanding this research.
Rating:
Summary: Behavioral Economics Explained Quite Well
Review: I have a Ph.D. in economics and a bachelor's degree in psychology. I've always found the fields of behavioral economics and experimental economics rather fascinating and wished to know more about the results of their research. So when I was shopping for a retirement investment guide recently I saw this book in the personal finance section and purchased it as well. As a primer on the basic findings of behavioral economics, this book is great -- interesting, well-explained, and much more fun to read than pouring through academic journals. It's quite interesting to see that how we make money decisions is based as much on psychological principles (namely loss aversion, sunk costs and framing of the gain or loss) as on a rational calculation of cost and benefits. Also explained somewhat here are money mistakes that people make not because of emotional tainting of financial decisions but simply because they draw incorrect conclusions from incomplete calculations, such as not correcting for inflation in the housing market, not calculating total interest payments over the terms of different loans, not realizing the power of compound interest. While it's a great book to explain certain irrational behaviors of your own and to explain a few financial chestnuts such as ignoring the financial pages, this book is not really an investment guide and is thin on suggestions for changing irrational behavior (other than realizing what you are doing will make you less likely to repeat the same mistakes). I would disagree with some reviewers who suggested that the book is insulting to their financial acumen. While it's true that there are people who have been able to 'beat the market', the authors merely report studies suggesting that most people who choose their own investments under-perform the market, and why this happens (framing of investment decisions, emotional investing, loss aversion, sunk costs, etc.). I think that's important information to have as an investor. If you choose your own investments, you will make smarter decisions by understanding understanding this research.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction, but be careful of their suggestions
Review: I have read several behavioural economics/finance books and found that this one is the most easy read and the best introduction to those who don't have a clue what is behavioural econ. The book has an excellent layout and explains behavioural concepts in an easy and interesting way. Although they have done a great job in getting your feet wet in this subject and understand what you may have done wrong in money, I personally don't like their suggestions too much. For example, they highly recommand index fund and have bias on individual stock picking or even mutual fund. This actually may scare readers away from other type of investments by highlighting too much on human mistakes without a clear instruction on how to overcome it.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun to read
Review: I really enjoyed this book because it challenged my thinking and kept me interested.
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't put this book down!
Review: I took "Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes" on my vacation to the Gulf Coast and I read it in one day, cover to cover. Not only is this book extremely informative, it's absolutely fascinating in that it explores the behavioral aspects of why we spend the way we do. Belsky is a master at writing. I loved his columns in Money Magazine and at Crain's New York Business and his earlier book, "On Second Thought." This book is a definite keeper -- one I'll buy more of for gifts and pass on to my family. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: lightweight but overall pretty decent
Review: I'm a little amazed at the reviews on this book. It isn't nearly as good as most of the glowing five star reviews make it out to be. It is a fluffy book of around 200 pages that I read in a single day. It has maybe 10 main irrational behavior we exhibit when it comes to money. Even though it was only 200 pages I couldn't help but feel that it could have been edited down substantially. On other hand, I'm even more amazed at the negative reviews. I'm not sure what the reviewers were expecting or whether they even read the same book I did. The book doesn't attempt to explain everything. In the introduction it clearly explains that this is an attempt at a popular airing of some of the main findings of behavioral economics. Certainly there are some things you already knew, like our tendency to follow the herd or be paralyzed by indecision when faced with too many choices. But there are also things you might not have known, like how easily we "anchor" on completely random numbers. I wouldn't have paid $20 for a hardcover copy of this book; I checked it out from the library. And I don't begrudge the time I spent reading it because I learned something. And that's really all you're supposed to get from this little book.
Rating: 
Summary: Little to say and says it at length.
Review: I'm surprised at the enthusiastic praise for this book. I've read many investment books over the last few years and this one stands out as one of the most tedious. Its focus seems to be more on cute, fatuous writing than conveying information. While the authors' opinions seem to be all over the place, they basically suggest that you'd get better results by buying index funds and forgetting about them. There are many better-argued books that make that point. Personally, I think that you'd gain more information by reading a few magazines articles than by bothering with this book.
Rating:
Summary: debunking economics
Review: In When Corporations Rule the World, David Korten tells a joke about a physicist, chemist and economist who are stranded on a desert island. They've salvaged a can of beans from their wrecked ship, but don't have a way to open it. The physicist suggests dropping it from a tree onto a rock to pop it open. The chemist suggests using salt water to create a chemical reaction to rust the top of the can. The economist says "You're making this too complicated. First, we will assume a can opener." The point of the joke is that economists make dubious assumptions and then base elaborate "theories" on them. In the last forty years, psychologists have done hundreds of experiments that test the economists' assumption that people are rational. As most of our grandmothers could have predicted, people do not think in the way that economists assume. Belsky and Gilovich summarize some of this work and discuss its implications for making better financial decisions. Although it is not framed this way, the book has a very radical and important message, which is hinted at in the subtitle. The primary "lesson from the new science of behavioral economics" is that mainstream economics is based on EMPIRICALLY FALSE PREMISES. The book is on the top 20 list of "Merrill Lynch and Company." Ironically, it would also be of interest to people (e.g., anti-WTO protestors in Seattle) who question the free market rhetoric used to justify global capitalism. Belsky and Gilovich make a valuable contribution to this growing movement by summarizing how scientific research has debunked the economists' myth that people and markets are rational.
Rating:
Summary: A sophisticated Suze Orman!
Review: Interesting book if you are a retail investor and would like to better manage your finances. Forces you to face your biases while directing you to the underlying economic theory underpinning your own tendencies and biases. The book is short and enjoyable. It does provide a neat overview of the various strands of research in behavioural finance but does not dwell too long on equity markets and actual investment issues.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: It leaves you begging for more. The problem is that at times they talk down to the reader --a little journalistic, more than warranted by the topic.
Still the more readable work on behavioral economics.
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